At a glance, nearly half of Whitebeard's chest cavity had already been blasted away, exposing the powerful heart within, still pounding with vigor.
And yet, that heart was beating more joyfully than ever before—
Because at last, it had broken free from the shackles of the Devil Fruit!
That parasite lodged within the human body, constantly draining one's life force and converting it into its own essence, had finally been severed completely with that single strike!
In truth, aside from a path like Kizaru's—fundamentally altering one's body and fusing entirely with the fruit's essence—there was only one other moment where such an exorcism was possible:
The instant when the fruit was forcibly triggered by the alien pulse and began to mutate.
Only then could a wielder use such a brutal, surgical method to excise it once and for all.
Fitting that it was Whitebeard—the strongest of the former Four Emperors.
Only his sheer will and ferocity could, in such a desperate moment, forge a method so simple yet devastatingly effective.
Marco and the division commanders didn't hesitate; they followed suit at once.
Even Charlotte Linlin and the others, after a brief moment of shock, gritted their teeth and turned their hands against themselves.
In an instant, among the ranks of the mightiest, a wave of self-inflicted detonations erupted!
Black ichor splattered everywhere, yet it could no longer congeal into those monstrous mutant limbs.
And as soon as the Devil Fruits were purged, they all felt it—
The grand gift of the Star Spirit!
That vast entity, which had always instinctively rejected the Devil Fruits, this time withheld nothing.
Pure, primal energy born of the planet itself poured into their bodies in torrents—
Life force, abundant and unrestrained, flooding into them as though it were free to give!
Whitebeard's ravaged chest and abdomen knitted back together as if painted whole by a divine brushstroke—
In the span of a single breath, he was restored completely.
The others' wounds vanished as well, and they stood once more at the very peak of their strength.
"Such overflowing vitality… even in the prime of my youth, I never reached this level!"
Whitebeard's eyes blazed, locked upon the twelve emerald fire meteors in the sky.
Only a hundred meters away now!
"No one will make me kneel! Not even the brand seared into my very bones!"
"We are pirates! Not slaves!"
With a roar, he charged skyward, meeting the first plummeting meteor head-on!
His cry ignited every soul still standing.
The crushing force that had been weighing down their bodies shattered beneath the surging blaze in their hearts.
Though not fully dispelled, it could no longer hinder them.
"We are pirates! Not slaves!"
The battle cry thundered across the battlefield, as men either joined Whitebeard in the sky or hurled themselves into the fray against the rampaging aberrations.
Those who had collapsed and fallen to their knees—ordinary pirates and revolutionaries—felt their blood boil anew.
Infected by Whitebeard's ferocity and the desperate grandeur of the moment, their hearts blazed hotter still.
An invisible power welled up inside them, straining to burst free!
"We are pirates! Not slaves!"
At last, one man staggered upright, slashing down an aberration that had leapt at his comrade.
"We are the Revolutionary Army! Not slaves!"
Another rose slowly, raising his arm high as he shouted.
One after another, more voices joined, each standing tall amid their cries.
A strange energy began to ripple among them, resonating and spreading through their ranks.
The genetic shackles buried deep within their blood unraveled under its vibration, rapidly breaking apart!
Their shouts even pierced the Red Line, reaching the battleship Pluton itself.
"We are the Navy! Not slaves!"
The navy elites' response came, uniform and unyielding!
Tens of thousands of naval soldiers erupted with a strange, overwhelming energy, surging forward behind Kizaru and Aokiji to reinforce the New World front!
"We… shall never be slaves!"
Roya's voice was quiet, yet it eclipsed the roar of the battlefield, echoing directly in every consciousness.
And in that unseen realm, it was as though a seed sprouted in every heart—
A tender green shoot breaking defiantly through the weight of oppression.
At once, all could feel it: the shackles shattered into ash!
The union of body and spirit grew sharper and more complete than ever before.
Every nerve could transmit their will to every fiber of muscle, perfectly aligned to execute the actions they truly desired!
In that instant, they all attained the pinnacle of the Six Powers.
The deeper truth of the Advanced Life Return etched itself indelibly into their souls!
Everyone who could still stand—or even claw their way upright—found their strength surging wildly.
Whitebeard in particular broke through into a realm of utter clarity.
His Conqueror's Haki and Armament Haki intertwined, unprecedentedly fused.
Every strand, every thread, coiled together like twin souls bound as one.
And the destructive might it contained soared to its highest peak!
With black and crimson lightning crackling around his blade, Murakumogiri came crashing down upon the brow of the foremost emerald-flame skull!
This creature had gravely underestimated the strike.
In its limited intellect, these "creations" were weaker even than the lowest bio-weapons—
How could they possibly harm it?
But this blow cleaved straight through the supposedly indestructible biometal it called a skull.
Like a ripe watermelon before the blade, it offered no resistance at all.
The very moment steel touched rind, the thick shell burst apart, revealing the soft flesh within.
The ferocious sword aura within blasted out the flames burning inside its skull—
One strike annihilating the lesser intellect that piloted the metal husk!
The green fire was snuffed out in an instant.
The skull became nothing but a true meteor, plunging into the abyssal sea below—
Where endless darkness, and the wrath of the Star Spirit, awaited.
Yet the power of the strike had not been spent.
Like an arrow fresh loosed from the bow, it streaked on toward the second skull.
This one, wiser for its brother's death, dared not meet the attack head-on.
It stretched out its limbs, straining against the wind to alter its descent, while thickening the part of its body about to be struck.
A sharp clang!
Half its torso was still sheared away effortlessly, bisected by that overwhelming blade aura.
The lesser intellect within, though it should have split and survived with the body, was instead erased completely—
Not by a violent explosion, but by the blade's impossibly refined precision.
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